Attendees;

Col	Baby Troupe
Paul	Suzuki Sierra
John & Rebecca	Mitsubishi Pajero
Mick, Chelsea & Jye	Nissan Patrol GQ

Trip

The trip began on a fine Saturday morning with the pre-ordered weather coming exactly as requested. Unfortunately for me though, I had more problems with the sat nav & as I had made the decision to go back to my original set-up & had forgotten the reason I had changed, it took a few minutes extra to sort it out, so was a few minutes late getting to the prediscussed meet up point at the Hawkesbury River.

We met up with the other guys & say I have to say that yet again I was disappointed with the numbers, being only 4 vehicles including my own. It makes me wonder if it is worth putting on trips sometimes for the club, when I can put them on for other groups & be guaranteed 10 or more each time.

Anyways, that is enough of my whinging ;)

We departed the river meet up point  and headed south towards west pennant hills, where we then started our trek westwards to Lithgow via a breakfast & fuel up stop near the Etamogah Pub.

We arrived at Lithgow just before 10am, where we picked up the keys to the Spanish Steps track and the other guys topped up with fuel Must be that the petrol vehicles were consuming more than my diesel, as I was still almost full from when I filled earlier.

We then left Lithgow, for the campsite at Blackfellows Rock, which for the first time ever, had other people camped nearby. These people were bike riders & one of the reasons I choose to camp in that area was to avoid the noise usually associated with bikes.

Once set up, we had a brief chat about what we would be doing & we then headed for the Gardens of Stone track, which as most on this trip had never been out this way before, was a good opportunity to give them an introduction to the type of terrain we would be driving on plus a few small steps and side slopes.

 

We arrived at the top of this track to a known good viewing area and I mentioned that this would be a good opportunity for pictures from the top of the rocks. The view from there is nothing short of spectacular.

From this point, we then made our way around to the lost city, which has a similar outlook & view. Some could be mistaken to thinking you are looking at the same view, but when you look on a map, you can see they are different areas. While at the Lost City car park, we stopped for lunch & I took the opportunity so get a few stills from the roof rack / viewing platform.

After lunch, we headed for the Son of Bobs track, which for a change, I put everyone through the harder section, which they all seemed quite keen to do when they saw how easily the baby-troupe climbed through there.

 

From this track, we then headed for Ranger Bobs, which again as I was feeling pretty confident, decided to have a go. I lined the 6-foot step up, hit both lockers & slowly approached it. The front went up quite well, without scraping, but as it did, the rear started to dig in, dragging my rear bar for about a metre before my momentum was stopped. As there were no vehicles there capable to pull me the rest of the way over, we decided to try to reverse back down. This came at a cost, as with the rear bar being buried, my exhaust was hanging below that, so was folded back on itself. As a safety measure, we decided to cut it off at the muffler to save it from building too much backpressure.

 

After this, Paul had a go in his Suzuki. While doing this, I was getting the video ready & looked up to see him have a third go, launched the zook & slipped into the rut while coming down. With that, it gently rolled onto its side, which tested his rollbar. We quickly assessed what needed to be done (get car back on wheels) & as it was a zook, we tried to do it by hand. Unfortunately this failed, so we then decided to use , a tree & my vehicle to get the angle we needed to roll it back onto it’s wheels. Once this was done, we brought the vehicle back to level ground, checked it over briefly & then decided to crank it. It stated up pretty easily, with only damage to a few panels & pride.

After this there were no real major challenges before we arrived at the Spanish Steps. I went down first, as I am used to the track & actually enjoy going down the harder side of the track, which is a fairly straightforward track, to newcomers it looks quite daunting. But if you decide that the scrapes you hear underneath the vehicle are minor, the track is very easy. Unfortunately Mick decided they sounded worse than they were & for the first time ever, I saw a vehicle stopped at the top step, sitting on in it’s cross member & unable to go forwards or backwards. We recovered him, did a little highway building & sent him back down, & this time he had no scrapes. Next up was John & he had no major hassles and was then followed by Paul, who showed how easy the track is with rock hopper gears.

At the bottom of the steps is a small creek, followed by a deep bog hole, then another creek crossing. Nobody attempted the bog hole, as those of us who have been here before know how hard it is to recover vehicles from it. It is still being eroded away on the edge, but can be driven around fairly easily by most. The creek following the bog again was uneventful. This then follows a narrow overgrown track, which looks great driving though. There is a harder “A” grade track which comes off to the right of this track. I eyed it off as we approached, but after seeing the size & lack of quality approach to the first rock step on it, decided against having a go at it. Paul tried & in the process he bent a sill.

After that, we had the final creek crossing & then the rock face. For the first time, I thought I would have a go at crawling up the right hand side. Unfortunately my wheelbase is the wrong length for this, as I had both front & rear axles tiring to climb steps at the same time & was just sitting & spinning. I reversed back down & then went straight up the middle, showing that the major advantage of using lockers is that you can crawl up very slowly, which minimises damage caused by bouncing.

Mick was next & demonstrated the momentum approach, also followed by John, who had a similar attempt. Last was Paul, who went up the harder right hand side in the short wheel based zook.

Once all had conquered we had a series of loose steps to climb before getting to the gate at he top, which where we decided to collect firewood. The other advantage of having the roof rack, was it keeps the associated dirt & ants from the inside of the vehicle when you can pile the firewood up top. From there we headed to camp, where we straightened out a few of Paul’s panels, had dinner & sat around the fire having a few drinks. For a change, I decided to let my hair down, finishing my 4 cans of Bulleit Bourbon & then polishing off a bottle of Port. Mick also had plenty to drink & when I mentioned I was doing a fitness challenge & that I was doing a few push ups & sit ups, he gave a demonstration by dropping & doing about 50. I laughed my head off, as I could not believe he had just done it like that. I guess his years of rowing with the lifesavers showed as he did it so easily.

Next morning, I slept in, finally waking at about 8:30. I guess the effect of the amount of alcohol I had consumed worked like a sleeping pill, giving me the best sleep I had in weeks. As I was also the trip leader for this trip, everyone was waiting for me to surface before we could do any tracks, and it was not long after I was up, before we hit the trails at 10am.

First up was the Spanish Steps track in the reverse direction. This sorted out the newbies pretty quickly, as the fear of extreme down hill slopes kicked in & they each decided a walk would be helpful. All came down with no hassles & it was then off across the 3 creek crossings, before getting to the steps. I again was up first, and the combination of experience & lockers made it look pretty easy, with my approach up the middle. Next was the Pajero, with a bit of slipping on the bottom step & stalling at the top, but otherwise an easy climb. Then was Paul, who came up the harder side & other than a few little hassles on the top step, was up in no time. Finally Mick came up in the Nissan & he made it easy up the easy side.

From there, we went to the moguls, where we were able to test the articulation of each vehicle. Mine being like a go-cart, but with the assistance of lockers went through easily, with heaps of wheel lift on each hump. Next was Mick, who had a number of attempts before finally getting through the first section. Paul followed & again showed the benefit of a locked rear dif, as he went through easily. Then in the proceeds of making a little room, put his car on a rock, which sort of hung him up. Mick was last up & had similar problems to John, with the lack of articulation, combined with no drive wheels on the ground, forward progress was absent.

Next challenge was a little hill with a rut & side slope that sorted me out. I did a little road building before I attempted it to help reduce the rollover risk. But as it turned out, was not quite enough, as when I dropped my rear tyre into the rut, the front came straight up. After speaking to the guys outside the vehicle & they mentioned the rear will still go down another foot, I decided to back up & get another rock thrown in the hole. Once this was done, it was an easy climb. Mick followed & had no hassles, as did Paul, who came up over the larger rocks. Lastly Mick came up & was through easily.

Ayers rock was next, and as I had seen others do the hight side last time I was here, I decided to give it a go. My first attempt was a fail, due to a lack of power & as it was sitting there spinning at 800rpm and not able to accelerate, I was concerned about potential transmission overheating, so backed down, though about it & ten have it another go, but with a little momentum. This time I climbed straight up. Next was Paul who had traction problems with the SWB zook, so required a couple of attempts before climbing over it. The other guys came up the lower side, which for them was just as difficult, with Mick bending his bulbar slightly.

From there, we drove to the swamp, where we stopped for lunch before we did the last track for the day. I expected a few more problems on this track as we had slippage problems on it last month, but it was no hassles this time, probably due to the fact that this time the trip was a dry one.

From there we went to camp, packed up & headed home via Lithgow, where I returned the keys, while the others pumped tyres & refuelled again (I was still above ½ tank)

All in all, the trip was a success with a little minor damage (see below).

Many thanks to Paul, Mick, Chelsea, Jye, John & Rebecca for a fun weekend out on the trails.

 

Damage Report

Baby Troupe – Rear section of exhaust system

Paul – Rollover, bent roof hoop, bent passenger side upright, bent window frame for passenger window, bent drivers side sill

Mick – Both sills dented, bend on bulbar on passenger side, Mudflap

John – Mudflap

 

 

 

A DVD of this trip should be available for purchase from www.baby-troupe.i8.com mid October 2005.

 

 

Col (BT)